This 2008 photo from Google Street View shows the iconic “A” sign on the Andersonstown Leisure Center in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
When people hear the name “Andytown,” they usually assume we’re named after someone named “Andy.” Every day, we get emails addressed to “Andy” or phone calls to the Roastery asking to speak with “Andy.” When we opened in 2014, our first employee was named Andrew, and he occasionally went by Andy. He loved telling telemarketers that yes, he was Andy, and no, he could not help them. After Andrew left, we gave everyone permission to be Andy when pushy salespeople or scammers called the shop. The joke reached its peak when we named our orange tabby cat Andy, and no, he couldn’t come to the phone right meow.
Here is Andy, the unofficial mascot of Andytown, eating the butter off of our daughter’s soda farl.
Andytown is actually named after a place—Andersontown, a neighborhood in West Belfast, Northern Ireland, that the locals lovingly refer to as “Andytown.” Michael grew up in Andytown and his parents still live there.
We named our company Andytown because we wanted to call back to Michael’s roots, but we also wanted to invoke a sense of comfort and Irish hospitality in our cafes. Our bakery makes traditional Irish soda breads, scones, and sausage rolls. Even our logo, which most people think is a variation of the anarchy symbol, is a reference to Andersonstown, Belfast. The Andytown “A” was inspired by the Andersonstown Leisure Centre—a public community center built in 1972, when West Belfast was “the frontline of The Troubles.”
The big red “A” that sat on top of the Andersonstown Leisure saw a lot during The Troubles, but the building itself acted as a safe place for children and families to enjoy recreation. And the sign, visible from the main road that went through the town, took on its own meaning for many of the people who lived in West Belfast.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the young Andersonstown punk community adopted the symbol as a West Belfast version of the common anarchy “A.” Bands like The Stiff Little Fingers and The Stranglers used photos of the Andersonstown Leisure Center “A” in posters and albums. For Michael, and thousands of other children in West Belfast, the “A” was a symbol of their identity as well as a landmark in the town. When it came to pick a logo for our new coffee company, the choice was obvious.
Photo from nipunk.com
In 2017, we heard that the Andersonstown Leisure Centre was being demolished to make way for a state-of-the-art community center complete with waterslides and a surfing simulator. Michael asked his ma, Therese Magill, to go down to the construction site and inquire about the sign. When she talked to some of the demolition crew about what they were doing with it, they offered to give it to her instead of throwing it in the bin. Suddenly, she had a 10-foot plywood sign in her back garden, and within a few months, we managed to get it shipped to our house in San Francisco.
And so, the iconic red “A” sign that stood watch over the Andersontown road for decades, bearing witness to the worst years of The Troubles, the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, and countless West Belfast community events sat in the garage of our Outer Sunset home, waiting for its next life.
In 2020, we started work on the expansion of our original cafe on Lawton Street and we knew the “A” had to play a prominent role in the design. As the pandemic put our project on hold, we had a lot of time to think about how best to display the historic sign. Eventually, we decided to illuminate it and hang it from our ceiling, pointing the tip of the “A” towards Andersonstown, reminding Michael, and all of us at Andytown, the direction home.
Michael stands under the Andytown “A” inside of our Lawton Street cafe. Photo: Irish Echo
Over at The Irish Echo, they have an interview with Micheal about the sign. We encourage you to read the article, and visit us on Lawton Street to see the sign for yourself.
